FALCONER— MASTODON AND ELEPHANT. 323 



ill the note, p. 315 of the preceding part, the numbers assigned to 



the true molars in the Indian Eleplant are, -,,,.,,-,,„. ^._ ; and 



^ ' 14+18+24-27 



in the definition of the subgenus, the increments in the interme- 

 diate molars are expressed by 12+14 + 18. The formula was 

 framed thus to embrace the range of variation in excess which is 

 met with in nature, and to eschew the imj)utation of straining facts 

 for a numerical harmony that certainly is not absolute. But if the 

 '"'ridge-formiila'' in this species is to be framed upon the prevail- 

 ing ciphers, exhibited in a large number of teeth, it will run so — 

 Milk-molars. True molars. 



4+8 + 12. 12 + 16+ 24 



4+8 + 12' 12 + 16 + 24-27' 



thus presenting two terms of progressive increments, the one 

 ranging from four to twelve in the milk-molars, and the other from 

 twelve to twenty-four in the true molars, the same cipher being- 

 common to the last milk-molar and to the first true molar, in ac- 

 cordance with what is seen in the other sections of the Proboscidea. 

 This last circumstance is that in which my observation on the 

 succession of the molar teeth in the existing Indian Elephant differs 

 most from the results arrived at by previous observers. 



There is no good evidence of the existing Indian Elephant having 

 as yet, anywhere in India or in Europe, been met with in the fossil 

 state. The specimens attributed to it by Trimmer, Mantell, and 

 others, are referable to E. (Euelejohas) anfiquus. But undoubted 

 fossil remains, now preserved in the British Mi;seum, have lately 

 been found in America, which indicate either a distinct species closely 

 allied to the Indian Elephant, and intermediate between it and the 

 Mammoth, or merely a well-marked variety of the former. In 

 either view the case is one of high interest in its palseontological 

 and systematic relations. This form is provisionally designated 

 E. Armeniacus in the Synoptical Table, p. 13 of the first part of this 

 essay. The molar teeth combine the closely approximated and at- 

 tenuated ridges of the Mammoth with the highly undulated enamel- 

 folding or " crimping " which is so characteristic of the Indian Ele- 

 phant. 



3. Eleplias (Eue2e/plias)]prim{genius. — In a strictly methodical order, 

 E. antiquus would follow next among the European fossil species for 

 description. But it vnll better suit the objects of this essay first to 

 dispose of E. primigenius, the Mammoth properly so called, since most 

 of the disputed points involved in the question of distinct species 

 or varieties only of a single form turn upon the exact determination 

 of the characters of the Mammoth. 



Whatever may have been the approximation previously made by 

 Merk or Blumenbach towards a distinction of the Mammoth from 

 the two living species, Cuvier was undoubtedly the first to charac- 

 terize the extinct species with exactness, in his joint memoir with 

 Geoffroy, under the name of Eleplias Mammoth, in the year 171)6*. 

 * Mem. do I'lustitut, 1''' Classc, torn. ii. 



